1. Field
The present application relates generally to the operation of wireless communication systems, and more particularly, to methods and apparatus for extended reverse direction grant in a wireless communication network
2. Background
With the increasing popularity of wireless networks, there is an ever greater need to increase the throughput from existing bandwidth allocations to increase system efficiency. One method of increasing the efficiency in the Media Access Control (MAC) layer is to utilize Reverse Direction Grant (RDG). RDG is a mechanism, for example, as defined in IEEE 802.11n, to transfer data in both directions without initiating a new transfer procedure. A station transmits a frame to another station indicating that the receiving station can send back data if its buffers indicates it to do so. This mechanism makes use of a Transmission Opportunity (TxOP), when the TxOP holder (initial sender) does not have enough frames to make use of the entire TxOP duration.
Unfortunately, the current RDG mechanism is problematic when transmitting data to multiple stations simultaneously. For example, data to be transmitted to multiple stations that is queued at the transmitter suffers from increased delay and jitter. Also, the current RDG mechanism suffers from increased MAC inefficiency due to mandatory spacing that needs to be provided between data transmissions and responses to multiple stations. This inefficiency is especially noticeable at higher data rates.
Therefore, there is a need in the art to provide solutions to the above identified problems to increase throughput and bandwidth efficiency in wireless networks.